Joan of Acewell

The person I talk to most at the firm is Joan, one of the relief receptionists. She's usually the one who covers me for my breaks and lunch hour, and she also comes by my floor every afternoon to re-stock the conference rooms with pens and legal pads. (Last month, after stealing pens from the conference room for several days, I discovered that none of them had ink -- another detail that delights the attorneys, I'm sure.)

Joan is a slim, white woman who wears short skirts and colorful chandelier earrings that would be too teenage for someone of her fifty-something age if she didn’t have the personality to pull them off. She always carries two purses plus a paper fan, a huge cup of ice and a fleece blanket (weapons against her alternating hot and cold flashes). She is deeply Catholic; she cried the day news broke that "Joan of Arcadia" was being canceled from the CBS lineup.

I'll openly talk to Joan about whatever she asks me (although once when I mentioned that I was living with my boyfriend she disapprovingly asked if he “intended to marry" me), but our relationship is largely based on my listening to her life dramas. The latest is about her 22-year-old stepdaughter who was in a car accident over the weekend and subsequently taken into custody for drunk driving. Today I was going to suggest that she start her own blog to chronicle her family soap, but she wouldn’t have the time. Evenings are busy with Bible study and, like me, she doesn’t have a computer login to use at work (she has been at Acewell for about a year and a half, but she is still officially a temp).

Lately Joan has been offering to take my timesheet down to HR for me on Fridays and for that she is my best buddy.